Everyone has experienced the weird feeling of drifting off while falling asleep (hypnic jerk), then suddenly jumping and waking up. You might dream that you’re falling down, something hits you or similar things. If you’ve ever been curious why this happens, in this article we explain it the best way we can.
Recently, scientists even gave it a name, “hypnic jerk”. Most commonly it’s described as a feeling similar to falling. Also, some people experience it differently, like someone is choking you while you’re sleeping.
If you experience the hypnic jerk regularly, you should avoid consuming caffeine or tobacco, since these two ingredients can cause it to happen more often. Also, if you don’t sleep enough, you will have it happen more often as well, or if you take drugs like Ritalin and Addreal.
As we said, it happens most commonly when we dream how we suddenly start falling. When we are too exhausted, our brain actually thinks we aren’t falling asleep, but our systems are falling down, so it gives our body a shock to wake it up.
The main idea behind the explanation of the hypnic jerk is that the brain actually causes us to dream things that will wake us up quickly.
If you experience the hypnic jerk regularly, you should avoid consuming caffeine or tobacco, since these two ingredients can cause it to happen more often. Also, if you don’t sleep enough, you will have it happen more often as well, or if you take drugs like Ritalin and Addreal.
As we said, it happens most commonly when we dream how we suddenly start falling. When we are too exhausted, our brain actually thinks we aren’t falling asleep, but our systems are falling down, so it gives our body a shock to wake it up.
The main idea behind the explanation of the hypnic jerk is that the brain actually causes us to dream things that will wake us up quickly.
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